The Host Resources Deep Dive book by Frank Denneman and Niels Hagoort has been one of the most widely anticipated books in the VMware community – previous deep dive books by Frank (co-authored with Duncan Epping), tantalising blog posts and captivating presentations have whet the appetite for the last year or so. Having sat through some of these presentations at VMUGs and VMworld I can tell you the depth and understanding that the authors bring to the table is immense.

I have not rushed to write a review of this book for two reasons, firstly I wanted to do it justice, and that meant that I needed to read it properly. The second reason is that this is a big book with well over 560 pages of content, and that requires some time!

I recently got my hands on a copy* of Chris Wahl and Steve Pantol’s Networking for VMware Administrators and was very keen to read it – especially given the reputation of the authors. I came to the book as someone who is at CCNA level (although now expired) and someone who regularly designs complex VMware networks using standard and distributed switches. I would class myself as having a fairly decent understanding of networking, though not a networking specialist.

The book starts out at from a really basic level explaining OSI, what a protocol is etc. and builds on the foundation set out as it progresses. Part I of the book gives are really good explanation of not only the basics of networking, but a lot of the “why” as well. If you’ve done CCNA level networking exams then you will know most of this stuff – but it’s always good to refresh, and maybe cover any gaps.

Part II of the book translates the foundations set out in Part I into the virtual world and takes you through the similarities and differences with between virtual and physical. It gives a good overview of the vSphere Standard Switch (VSS) and vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) and even has a chapter on the Cisco 1000v. One of the really useful parts of the book are the lab examples and designs, which takes you though the design process and considerations to get to the solution. [Read more…]